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Tracy Donhardtreporter

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Indiana’s life sciences resources to be catalogued:

An idea fermenting for some time in the minds of several Indiana Health Industry Forum insiders has solidified into a plan to catalogue all life sciences-related resources across the state. The not-for-profit group, which promotes economic development in the health care and life sciences industries, will use the information to create strategies for communities, regions and the state to boost Indiana’s growth in the industry. Companies including Eli Lilly and Co., Roche Diagnostics and Zimmer Holdings have put the state…

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Reinbold to sell Chinese autos in Indianapolis: Affordable luxury line likely to hit the streets in 2008

Local car dealer Dennis Reinbold, well-known for selling high-end German and Japanese automobiles, will add Chinese vehicles to his lineup, possibly by the end of next year. Reinbold will be among the first dealers in the United States to sell cars made in Wuhu, China, by the state-owned Chery Automobile Co., one of that country’s fastest-growing automakers. Reinbold, who is also an Indy Racing League team owner, paid $2 million to sell the Chinese cars, which will be distributed by…

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Ahnafield helps disabled achieve self-dependence: 34-year-old firm makes high-tech mobility products

Driving a road sweeper when he was 18 years old, Ryan Kruse never saw the train that slammed into his vehicle and turned him into a quadriplegic. College and other plans for the future seemed out of reach for Kruse, who was paralyzed from his chest down that day 13 years ago. But recently, Kruse, who is working on a second bachelor’s degree at IUPUI, traveled to Georgia to celebrate his grandmother’s 80th birthday. He drove. With only limited use…

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Premiums continue to climb: Rate increases may dip, but not by very much

After four years of double-digit rate hikes, average health care insurance premiums rose less than 10 percent in 2005. And they’re expected to rise less than 10 percent again in 2006, according to several national surveys. But excuse employers if they don’t get excited about the trend. They are still faced with having to pay much higher prices or trimming benefits-or both. Health care insurance premiums this year increased 9.2 percent, a 2-percent drop in the average increase from the…

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Apartment industry embracing Ball State graduates: Program makes property management a career goal

During the 1990s, a booming Indianapolis apartment market was becoming increasingly competitive. About 10,000 units were added to the market in the second half of the decade and professional, well-educated managers to run them were in short supply. Enter the Apartment Association of Indiana, which figured the best way to find the professionals apartment owners needed was to grow their own, so to speak, by creating a post-secondary education degree program for the industry. At that time, Virginia Tech was…

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Parents banking on storage of umbilical cord blood: Founder keeps research alive through Genesis Bank

Blood from the umbilical cord of a baby expected to be born in Indianapolis later this month will be collected after her birth and saved for her 5-year-old sister, who has been diagnosed with cancer. The stem cells extracted from the baby’s umbilical cord blood might someday save the life of her sibling. While doctors at Riley Hospital for Children wait and see if the young cancer patient responds to standard treatment over the next couple of years, the stem…

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Flexible spending extension expected to be little-used: Planners say total elimination of use-it-or-lose it rule would increase participation, make plans more useful

A new Internal Revenue Service rule relaxes the “use it or lose it” rule in flexible spending accounts by extending the period during which expenses may be incurred beyond the end of the plan year. Health care flexible spending accounts allow participants to set aside at the beginning of the year a predetermined amount of pretax money to be used for medical, dental and vision expenses not covered by insurance. Dependent care spending accounts do the same thing for child…

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Late taxpayers get break with state’s amnesty plan: Reprieve likely a good opportunity, planners say

Individuals and companies that owe taxes to the state are being given a chance to pay up without interest, fees or penalties during a two-month amnesty window opened by the Indiana Department of Revenue. The tax amnesty-the first one offered by Indiana and unusually generous compared with other states’ programs-is touted as a way to add an estimated $65 million to the state’s coffers and provide delinquent payers with a way to clear debt off their books. More than $1.3…

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IPS seeks property swap: School district will trade prime Mass Ave land if deal is right

But an unusual component of the soon-to-be-released request for proposals by Indianapolis Public Schools, the property’s owner, has many wondering if anyone has what it will take to win the coveted piece of real estate. What it’ll take is the offering of a replacement facility where IPS can move its central transportation facility and other school district operations. “That’s the general concept,” said SteveYoung, chief of facilities management for IPS. “We’re not looking to sell it. We would have to…

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Pervious concrete usage expected to rise in Indiana: Product touted as friendlier to environment, developers

“That’s called bioaugmentation,” said Pat Kiel, executive director of the Indiana Ready Mix Concrete Association. “Concrete science meets bioscience.” Nearly 90 percent of pollutants are typically carried by the first 1-1/2 inches of a daily rainfall into rivers and streams, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA requires that the first threefourths of an inch of rain each day be maintained on site until treated. Typically, most of that water, which includes “first flush” contaminants, is collected in…

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Architects from 3 states to showcase work at event: City welcomes AIA’s Ohio Valley Region convention

The convention kicks off with a shotgun golf outing Sept. 14 at Pebble Brook Golf Club. After golf, attendees can tour five downtown architectural firms. Workshops that begin the next day will follow three tracks of programs-design, community projects and professional development, Kunce said. They will cover a variety of topics including starting a practice, building code requirements, civic initiatives and design- About 250 architects from Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana will converge downtown Sept. 14-17 when Indianapolis hosts the American…

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Insurers thinking younger: Healthy, uninsured and 20? WellPoint, Golden Rule, others would like to sell you a policy

WellPoint Inc. and other insurers think they’ve found a hot new market-offering high-deductible individual health insurance policies to uninsured people who are young and healthy. It’s a market insurers historically may have overlooked, based on the misconception that uninsured people are poor and in bad health, said Dana McMurtry, vice president of health policy and analysis at WellPoint. Nationally, more than half the 45 million uninsured earn more than $25,000 a year and more than one-quarter top $50,000 annually, according…

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Student teachers get taste of urban schools: Ball State lets future educators spend semester in IPS

For many students majoring in education at Ball State University, thinking about teaching in an urban elementary school conjures up images of unruly students, apathetic parents and old, rundown buildings. These and other similarly negative perceptions are generally inaccurate, say BSU educators, but they are gathered in surveys conducted each year. So the BSU Urban Semester Program places students in an Indianapolis Public School for 16 weeks in the hope they acquire more positive-and accurate-images. “We find students have horrible…

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Sourwine planning to sweeten its local office offerings: Second-generation real estate firm has two new buildings in the works that could nearly double its holdings

When Jim Sourwine was 4 years old, he would sit outside the closed door to his father’s home office and play with his toy cars. Barred from entering the adult-only world, sounds of paper shuffling and adding machine clacking piqued his interest in his family’s real estate business. “I wanted in,” Sourwine recalls. By the time he was old enough to file and wash windows for the firm, his father had moved Sourwine Real Estate Services out of his home…

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All-in-one discount pass sells well in opening year: Park officials hope to boost sales of child tickets

Nearly a year after White River State Park created a seven-venue park pass, the group is deeming the program a success. The pass provides one-time admission to White River Gardens, the Indianapolis Zoo, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, NCAA Hall of Champions, the Indiana State Museum, an Imax movie and an Indianapolis Indians game. The park sold 518 adult passes at $38 each and 42 child passes at $27 each. It sold out its original number…

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Smaller-sized meetings bring in big bucks for city: Hospitality group sees value in events of all scales

Even event planners hire event planners. When Cynthia Howell needed to plan an event in the city for a state health care organization, she called Betsy Ward, a member of the meetings team at the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association. With what Howell calls minimal effort on her part, the Indiana Primary Health Care Association Inc. will stay in 50 rooms for two nights at the Sheraton Indianapolis Hotel and Suites at Keystone at the Crossing this fall. The group…

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Cook County jail contract gives local firm big boost: Government Payment Service could double business

Government Payment Service Inc.’s credit-card-based jail bond service has proven to be a successful alternative to traditional cash transactions. Now the Indianapolis-based company, which has experienced tremendous growth since its founding in 1997, could double in size, having secured a contract with the country’s largest jail system in Cook County, Ill., home to Chicago. Cook County, with 5.3 million people, is the second-most populous county in the nation, topped only by Los Angeles County in California. Processing credit card bail…

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Program hopes to boost women in science: IUPUI to put female science students under one roof to nurture their interest in field often dominated by men

The “girls aren’t good at science” myth still exists, according to many science educators. That is why a new School of Science program at IUPUI hopes to do its part to dispel the label many say is created as early as elementary school. IUPUI’s Women in Science House will literally house together women studying science, providing a nurturing environ ment for female students who often feel isolated, a factor that can cause them to change majors, said Pam Crowell, director…

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Education programs provide job opportunities: Career Connections aims to curb turnover at entry level

When Luvinia Hollis moved to Indianapolis from Kentucky about five years ago, the then-42-year-old had few skills, so landing a job was difficult. She lived with her sisters and got some help from her ex-husband, but trying to make ends meet on $100 a week was nearly impossible. “It was so horrible for me, you wouldn’t believe,” Hollis said. She worked odd jobs for the next few years, making barely more than minimum wage. Eventually, she found her way to…

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Growth in big supply at 3-year-old Milor: Entrepreneur taps experience to land big clients

Michelle Taylor’s first customer was a north-side hotel that ordered 3,000 janitorial gloves a month. She got up at 3 a.m., processed the order out of her garage, and delivered the gloves in her car. Less than three years later, Indianapolisbased Milor Supply Inc. delivers 36,000 gloves a month, plus janitorial equipment and supplies and safety equipment, to universities, city and state governments, hospitals and a host of other industries across the country. The 35-year-old black female entrepreneur has moved…

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